We Are All Prisoners

We Are All Prisoners
copyright @aladreth

"A man's history lies in his own hands; where he finds work for them is his home." ~ Taylor

In prison, we are shamed from being there.  We hold everything close.  Furtive.  No matter our crime of murder or our crime for stealing a loaf of bread, we do not want to share too much for fear of ... well, who knows what our individual fears are. I am not here to analyze that.  I am here to tell a story.

I am all wrapped up in stories - that is what I really need ... I need your story.  You may think I am only interested in sex and getting that "feel good" feeling from you.  Perhaps I am.  I don't know.  I'm trying to figure this out right now.  I am being tested it seems.  God, Himself has offered me the opportunity to heal someone if I take on their own illness.  Is my love strong enough?

I am no Mother Theresa.  Talk is really cheap.  We all know that.

It seems I must play a game of hide and seek to get my stories.  I must pretend to be aloof and not care and that is when they will come to me.

This morning, I heard Robert's story between red and swollen pains.  He was a prisoner previous to this new life of his. Perhaps he is still a prisoner.  You will decide for yourself.

Some girl took him in.  She wrapped her own story around his.

She weaved her story around his own story of once gentle hands filled now with hard labor scars from work in the prison. He could tell you the story of each scar's day.  This was the day the pipe fell too hard right above his right hand's index finger and this was the day a broken shovel handle scraped his life line on his palm.  So on and so on.  The prison was serving old fashioned, "shit on a shingle" both of those specific days.  The things we remember, huh?
 
All his hands had touched before his prison stint were ancient manuscripts.

He was a smart guy.  A guy who studied history.  His crime that sent him away to prison for five years was more of a social nature.  Nothing you or I should be worried or concerned about.  we shouldn't sit around pondering, "Oh, my! What if he was a murderer?"  In a social land or some type of place where revolution was still favoured, perhaps he threw plaster and paint over the statue of their King.  I didn't really care about his crime, so I didn't listen as well during that time of his tale.

Mainly I listened to him cry.  He cried tears of hurt like a bitter blanket sent to warm him.  He clutched his misery tight to him, crying for all the things that were lost to him.

Rejection after rejection.  No one wants a prisoner.

After he was released from prison, the revolution did not want him. Truth be known, they didn't want him to begin with.  He only convinced himself he had something to offer to their cause. They definitely didn't want him now.  Who would want a gentle man with hands so weak?  Even with five years work in the prison, he was not a strong man.  Years before his cell time, always bent over the ancient manuscripts, had not given him strength for sure.

People had warned him about the girl.  The girl who would take him in, she was known for being controlling, and had her own struggles she had to get over.  Her mother did not like Robert; said he was a derelict drifter.  She replied, within her heart, "I am as well.  I know the verses written on the jail walls too, Mother."  She wouldn't dare say it aloud, but she was already in love with Robert and didn't give a hill of beans what anyone said about him.  She was going to take him in.  She would parade him right down the middle of the village if she had to, just to prove her point that love conquered all.

Robert had his own naysayers who counseled him, "You know you are just leaving one prison for another one, Robert?  Well.  You are!  The work will be hard, the fields dry as a bone will need to be nurtured and fed water.  There will be hornet's nests to move, you know.  After that, all you will have is the girl to come home to.  Oh, she will see to that."

He knew this and asked her straight away as she guided him along the dusty streets to her home, "Will there be ancient manuscripts there at your tent?"

She put a finger to his mouth, perhaps to hush his worries, "No, you silly boy-man."  Then looking down at her dirty feet in rat chewed sandals said, "We will make new history."